A cricket crazy nation
When I heard that the India lost to Bangladesh, and later Sri Lanka, in the Cricket World Cup, I must have been only Indian who was actually happy.India is a nation crazy about the “sport” of cricket. You find kids playing cricket in every street in India, dreaming of becoming the next “superstar”. But I find it very hard to think of any reason to like the sport. For sure it’s not the fast paced action. And from an athletic or physical point of view, it certainly doesn’t do any wonders for the people playing the sport, at least not the lazy way the Indian cricketers is play. I was watching women’s football the other day. Okay it wasn’t as good as the men’s football but even then these women had better physiques and ran faster than the player in the Indian cricket team (the men’s one that is).
March 27th, 2007 at 12:05 am
what a load of rubbish. who writes this stuff? have you ever tried to play cricket? how can you say that by watching or playing cricket you get fat and lazy. first you said that india don’t win medals at olympics then you said that ex olympions have to sell there medals to live! do we not have a young female tennis player, last season i think we had a F1 driver correct me if im wrong please. and as for the last comment India Vs Pakistan means nothing… playing against Pakistan in Pakistan was a huge step in the peace between the two countries over the past few years and i don’t think there was any fighting between the fans.
March 27th, 2007 at 7:12 am
I wouldn’t say Indians are lazy, far from it, face it we are workaholics. It’s just that we don’t do much when it comes to physical exercise. And cricket isn’t exactly the most physically taxing sport out there. For a country as big and as populous as India we should really be winning a whole loada more medals than we currently do. And i think Narain (F1) and Sania Mirza (Tennis) are the exceptions as opposed to the rule.
March 27th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Sports doesn’t all have to be fast and furious! There is tactics involved, using of brain and facing challenges and winning (or getting out of trouble) using minds as well as body power. That’s where the fun and challenge is!
Try it!
March 27th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I also was happy India lost. I think it was GB Shaw who said that cricket is a game where 22 fools play and 22000 fools watch. Now the 22000 is 22million or more fools. The cricket is no longer a game. It is business not only for the players but for gamblers and match fixers. The old saying “This is not cricket” does not mean the same thing any more.
Because india lost, following are the national gains according to Daily Sakal the widely read Marathi newspaper from pune. (See march 27 issue):
(i) Students will save alot of time that would have been wasted watching cricket. (ii) If India had reached super 8 then 37.12 crore man hours of useful work would have been wasted in unproductive pastime. (iii) This saving would lead to Rs 817 crores productivity. Thisis more than the loss of 163 crores claimed to have lost by the corporate world (probably Media) (iv) Electricity worth 3.24 lakh units would be saved since TV will not be used.
Media and mobile companies hyp[e up the innocen gullible cricket fans making them send useless SMS in which only the mobile companies make money.
To what extent cricket is Cricket and not satta can be seen from the Murder of the Pak Coach.
March 27th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Instead of giving knee jerk reactions, why can’t Upendra answer the points raised by the author, how come a country of billion people only managed one bronze medal in the Olympics, if that is not shameful I don’t know what is?
Have you ever heard of what happened to Dhyan Chand the hockey legend?
He became so bitter near the end of his life that he opposed his own son playing Hockey because of the shabby treatment that he got.
We all saw the “glorious” performance of the Indian cricket team once again this world cup where they even lost to a minnow like Bangladesh and of course Indians shedding tears over those losers once again.
I used to play cricket religiously until 3 years ago, but gave it up once I found Football, in fact Kabaddi is far better than cricket, millions of dollars are paid to the them every year and they go lose to Bangladesh, shows me how much they care about the aspirations of a billion people.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Up until a few years ago it was common for the Indian cricket team when playing overseas to warm up for their matches by visiting the nearest Indian restaurant instead of the gym! Seriously this is no joke, its what Ganguly even admitted.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Seriously folks..
The indian cricket team should go on to public tv and apologise to the indian nation for what was a total embrassment… but u know what they will not; they will hide behind their sponsorship deals and bombay parties…
and I do not need Shaw to be quoted to be reminded that “vested” interests are running the show… typical Indian - runs off and quotes a long dead gora about something about india…
oh how this insecurity and slave mentality is so in grown within us….
March 29th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
i heard cricket might be rigged and players from india team might be getting paid off.
Also yea cricket isn’t are sport india sport is wrestling i mean most older punjabis arn’t cricket fans and many don’t know how to play it but amongst the younger generation their cricket crazed even in the punjab but amongst the elders its usually kabardi and wrestling and weight lifting their interested in not cricket most make fun of the sport.
I mean india has potential to dominate 1 billion ppl now ppl are making fun that are genetics are bad and don’t have the build to compete in sports this is humilating.
Football rugby wrestling these are the sports that are physically challenging and we should focus on
If you type in mma in india on www.youtube.com you will see how mma is growing in india which is good.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:45 am
A few observations:
1. Sports preferences are quite personal. Personally, I quite like cricket but can fully appreciate that not everyone feels the same way.
2. In terms of the politics of cricket, well that is politics, not sport - whether a country chooses to play another country or not cannot be blamed on the sport but is a political decision, and as we all well know, politics is supremely fickle at the best of times.
3. It’s interesting that India always seems to do very well in the Commonwealth Games (to be noted, wrestling, mentioned above, is generally one of our strong sports in that competition) but so badly in the Olympics - I wonder why that is..
4. It is strange that cricket is claimed to be elitist, but rugby is mentioned as something to focus on. Additionally, cricket is denigrated as a colonial hangover, whereas football and rugby are encouraged.
5. It was good to see Maj Rathore (the one Indian medalist at Athens: silver - not bronze, as stated above - in shooting) put his finger on what he thinks is the problem in Indian sports - it is not about population or anything else, it is purely about facilities and resources. Look at Australia, with its relatively small population; they put an unbelievable amount of resources into sports training and the results clearly show.
6. Personally, I’m not too interested in what sport you take; what is important is making sure you are the best at it, and in my view, that is the problem, not cricket.
April 19th, 2007 at 7:15 am
I enjoy watching cricket a lot, but I have to agree with this article, there is a down-side to the over-emphasis on one sport to the exclusion of all others. Also, the over-glorification of cricket players makes me uncomfortable, as does the riotous behaviour when India loses. However, India is not the only country with this problem…it is shared with our savant “neighbours”,
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I recall during the Kargil War, when tens of Indian soldiers had been killed, some of their bodies being mutilated before return, people all over India were offering prayers and donations and the like at important mandirs … in the hope that India would win the cricket World Cup.
Personally, I was quite disgusted by the whole thing, but I don’t blame cricket; I don’t even blame the Indian public. This is an attitude that is fairly pervasive all around the world. Similarly, during the 2002 football World Cup, at match time, there was not a single member of staff (nurses, doctors, etc.) to be found on the shop floor in either the Emergency Department or the wards of a certain British hospital I found myself in at the time - I was hugely relieved when England lost to Argentina.
I agree with Dangerous above to some extent, but again, I find it hard to understand how cricket is to blame for the stated ills that surround it. These problems, as far as I can make out, are confined neither to cricket nor to India.
April 29th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
India failed to show their true strength at the world cup,stressful as it is for the Indian fans all over the world, but this is just bad luck…life goes on.